The
Austral Islands dance paddle is one of the great enigmas of Polynesian Art.
The Australs lie south of Tahiti and were visited briefly by Captain Cook on
his first and last voyages, but the exposed nature of the islands and the unfriendliness
of the inhabitants convinced Cook to sail on both times after a small amount
of trading took place. Fletcher Christian and the Bountry mutineers returned
to Tahiti after briefly attempted to settle on Tubuai, but not before they killed
or wounded sixty islanders. It was only after Tahitian lay missionaries arrived
in 1821 that the islands began to establish real contact with Europeans, yet
even this coincided with the introduction of European diseases and a catastrophic
collapse of the population. Most Austral Island paddles are dated roughly between
1820 – 1840, mostly made probably on the Island of Raivavae or Raevavae,
and are generally described as made for trade items, with their original use
being treated as something of a mystery. Their form varies depending mainly
on length, with longer paddles in excess of 120cm generally concidered the most
elegant. The pommel is usually encircled by eight protruding heads tapering
to a slender cylindrical shaft and laceolate blade, incised with an ornate finely
carved geometric motif over the surface. There are thought to be over one thousand
in public collections worldwide, but it is likely that an equal number exist
in private hands.

Generally they are treated somewhat dismissively by curators and writers as
made for trade items and are certainly one of the most common survivors of Polynesian
Art, probably equal with the Maori Taiaha, of which there is also no shortage.
This attitude is surprising because these paddles are an artistic tour de force,
a concentrated study in sustained carving of the highest quality. It is true
some later ones were crude, but they remain a minority, the majority being good
to superb. For any skilled modern carver holding a good example in ones hands
is a humbling experience. In fact, compared to the average Maori Taiaha the
carving skills required to execute a good Austral Island paddle exceeds that
required for the taiaha by several degrees of magnitude in technical dexterity
and difficulty, and that in no way denigrates either the beauty of a Maori Taiaha
or the skill required to carve a good example.

In fact I would go further. The auction prices of some items perceived as rare
in Polynesian Art bear no relationship to aesthetic quality. At Sothebys in
June 2011 against as auction estimate of 100,000 to 150,000 euros a 8 1/5 inch
foot rest for Maori digging stick sold for 1,408,750 euros, yet at my local
auction rooms a good example of an Austral Island paddle brought only 3,500
euros. The Maori foot rest was unexceptional compared with many fine examples
found in museum collections worldwide, yet we are asked to believe this object
should be valued at 40 times that of a good representative Austral Island paddle?

Such are the vagaries of the art market and the dubious nature of art crititism.
Whether Austral Island paddles are really dance paddles is often questioned,
but why this should cause a pause for doubt seems to me somewhat ridiculous.
Tonga, Easter Island, Fortuna and many other Polynesian groups used paddles
for action songs, plainly Austral Island paddles were not made for paddling
but for cerimonial purpose, so their use as a dance paddle is a reasonable conclusion.
Many island groups specialized in production of canoes, tapa cloth or fine carved
items, and prior to 1500AD when the complete discovery of all the inhabitable
islands in the Pacific and also the West coast of South America and possibly
also Southern California brought an end to long range voyaging, the Austral
Islanders maintained contact with the Society Islands and the Southern Cooks,
with whom the Austral Island's art of carving and tapa cloth retained many similar
motifs.

Looking
at the quality of Austral Island paddles, drums, fly wisks, fans and diety figures,
these islands maintained a tremedous tradition of skilled craftmanship. How
much carving patterns related to tattoo design would make an interesting study,
as plainly there are great similarities between carving motifs and surviving
tapa designs. Logicaly tattoo designs probably relate to carving patterns, indeed
chip carving details on surviving figurative art seem to represent tattoos.

Rhys
Richards has just completed a book on Austral Island paddles having personally
handled over five hundred in public collections. This is the first serious attempt
to obtain an overview of surviving Austral Island paddles. Unfortunately this
was something of a lost opportunity. The fact that two thousand examples survive
and were created over a very limited time span of twenty years creates a wonderful
opportunity to match paddles made by the same maker, just as early Italtian
and Flemish paintings are ascribed to unknown master painters. The attached
image of what is arguably the best example of a Austral Island paddle now in
the Detroit Institute of Art, shows superb workmanship and such carving should
be easily matched to any other carving by the same maker. It is true that the
appalling death rate experenced in the islands over those twenty year must have
cut short the life of many artist/carvers, however to be capable of such fine
workmanshp even if the carver of this particular paddle died after the paddle
was finshed he must have completed many examples before hand to acquire such
a high level of skill and importantly there can be little doubt that Polynesians
possessed the asethetic sense to recognize a skilled craftsman and to consider
his products more desireable and more valuable that lesser craftsmen. This must
prove a fruitful field for research in the future if the person conducting the
research had experience as a carver and a high level of understanding of Polynesian
aesthetics. Rhys Richards maintains that these paddles were made using serrated
shark's tooth chisels. I am somewhat dubious that this is in fact the case,
but the claim could be proved or disproved by physically reproducing the patterns
of Austral Island carving in the same native woods. This sort of experiment
would certainly advance our knowledge of these mavelously mysterious and beautiful
objects.

John Rutherford bearing Austral Island tattoos on his chest

One can also advance the distinct possibility that like Tongan carvers working
in Fiji, many Austral Island paddles and other objects were produced by Austral
Islanders working in Tahiti and other islands in the Society Island group. In
the British Library there is a wash drawing by Sydney Parkinson dating to Cook's
visit to Tahiti in 1769 of a war canoe or pahi with warriors and paddlers. Like
his more famous drawing of a war waka off the coast of New Zealand the canoe
is truncated to fit the page but accurate in essentuals, the gorgets for example
wore around the neck of the warriors are plainly identical to the type collected
by Cook and Banks on this visit. A closer look at the paddles in the hands of
the paddlers bears considerable resemblence to the general shape of Austral
Island paddles yet as far as we know none were collected on this trip. It is
hard to imagine from what we know of supposed early examples of Austral Island
paddles that Cook or his men who were avid collectors of Tahitian curiousities
would not have found these appealing. Such frustrating hints as the paddles
in Parkinson's drawing are the lot however of students of Polynesian Art.

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